Gray
by magicscalpel
Summary: Sweeney Todd ponders why the world is always so damn gray. Then there is Mrs. Lovett.


At two in the morning is when I finished this. I was staying at my friend's house, and she basically begged me with puppy eyes and an obnoxious chorus of "Pleasepleaseplease?" to get me to write Sweeney Todd smut for her. Because we saw it twice together. Then got in a wreck afterward.

This is no more smutty than HBO at midnight.

THIS PIECE OF CRAP IS DEDICATED TO MANDIMALICE BECAUSE SHE IS A WHORE WHO MAKES ME WRITE BULL AT TWO IN THE MORNING.

Name: Gray

Author: Magic Scalpel

Summary: Sweeney Todd sometimes ponders why the world is so damn gray. Then there is blood… and Mrs. Lovett.

Warnings: BLOOD PLAY. MENSTRUAL BLOOD PLAY. I made it as tasteful as I could fricking MANAGE, so lay off my back. The world isn't all flowers and daisies. In fact, the world sucks. Fuck you, world.

Disclaimer: I don't own. I screw around with everything that is beautiful.

God I am so getting reported for this. THANKS MANDI.

* * *

The process of dying is an infinite timeline squeezed into the mere milliseconds that death takes to occur and run its course. When a subject's internal clock ticks to a stop, every stain of memory imprinted into its gears bursts forth in a flash of white light not quite different from that glow one races for at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel is a mythological bout of bullshit fabricated for little boys and girls so they would not fear the inescapable darkness that comes with death. What little boys and girls are not aware of is the fact that the white light is no more than their life imploding back into nothingness from whence it bloomed forth to wreak havoc on the world along with every other shit stained soul conceived from the very same nothingness.

In a sense, all people are created from the same nothingness, and as such the fleshy clocks that tick within them are all one and the same, stringing every existing human being together as kin.

If this particular theory was true, then Sweeney might as well have fucked his sister.

He remembered that day. As the cold blade kissed across his flesh, it reminded him sweetly of that gray building on that gray street under that same gray sky that took the trouble to provide light for the citizens who roamed the streets.

* * *

Always taking time to gaze from his dreary window, Todd could not help but find this ironic; rats did not require light. They scurried about and spread their wretched diseases just as dandily without the aid of a beacon to guide them. The people below were no different.

He guessed that this was why the sky was gray. Just as gray as the people who passed with their pasty gray complexions to match their gray clothes so they would not seem out of place in the eyes of the equally gray sky.

Mrs. Lovett, he concluded, was not gray. Her dresses and ruffles were a plethora of colors and textures, colors not so gray as everyone else's but not so shocking as to single her out as a daft clown.

Todd often found himself lost in his work, at times so much that other seemingly less crucial routines went by in a blur of discern. His swinging arm was mechanical and hit its mark every time. What he was rewarded with made the deed all the more satisfying. His eyes were always greeted by beautiful shades of red that danced across the gray around him. To think that such beautiful color could be harvested from such hideous people.

Todd marked it as a metaphorical symbol, to find beauty within something ugly. Then he thought of birds in cages and his mindset abruptly flipped; these people were trapping beauty within them through use of arteries and tissue that caged it within. If anything, these people were greedy whoremongers who deserved to have the beauty ripped from their pulsing necks. If anything, the beauty deserved to be set free. If anything, Sweeney Todd deserved to see to it.

In his pondering, he briefly wondered what Mrs. Lovett's blood looked like spattered across her pale anatomy.

Was her blood gray to balance her outer beauty? Was that any better than having the beauty horded within her?

Or was she just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside?

* * *

Mrs. Lovett did not mind the putrid stench that radiated from the basement. She was well aware of the business that basement's contents brought and was not about to complain and risk a nasty act of Godly vengeance for her lack of gratitude.

Consequently, if she were to be grateful for anything, it was Mr. Todd.

He brought business to her shop as well as warmth to her heart. She allowed his fresh yet monotone presence to clear the cobwebs from her soul, an area her late husband once occupied quite thoroughly with his morbid girth.

She often found herself humming softly as she baked, feeling as if the roaches on the table were dancing along in little skittering circles. It was a downright shame that they could not accompany them when they moved by the sea... which they would, someday.

The thought of escaping with Mr. Todd and Toby to such a wondrous place gave her butterflies—

"Oh, damn it all!" She sputtered and slammed down her rolling pin, disturbing some settled flour and stomping through the thick cloud to the living area in the back of the shop; the only thing that came with being a woman that she abhorred was the monthly demonic evil that settled itself between her thighs and marred her otherwise chipper mood with the red rivers and sour temper it provoked from her.

"_Can't even move about without needing to change it out every hour or so…"_

Her grunts from the washroom carried into the front, decidedly mingling with the bell and slow creak of the door.

Todd's boots scuffed across the dirty floor and dirty rug to disturb dust outside the washroom entry. He stood silent as death, face blank and eyes just as eerily empty as they always were when he was not playing with his "friends."

Mrs. Lovett sat inside with a wet rag and a handful of soft cloth to make an attempt at slowing the bleeding. For reasons unknown, she was a heavy bleeder. It made the wrinkles in her brow crease in frustration when the demon came for a visit. She did not notice the shadow fall through the crack in the door; she was too absorbed in yanking her frills and things back into place after finishing the job.

It wasn't until she opened the door and glanced up that she uttered a thinly composed shriek.

A hand clutched her heaving bosom as she stared into Todd's glazed stare with relief, "Blimey, Mr. T, gave me a fright, you did," she huffed with the breath she managed to keep while having the rest frightened right out of her.

Sweeney Todd was never one for beating around the bush, "Pardon my intrusion, but there seems to be blood on your hands, Mrs. Lovett."

Mrs. Lovett glanced down at the faded red that stained her fingers, having forgotten to wash all evidence before returning to her baking.

"Oh, well, it's that time." Her short laugh encouraged a crookedly arched brow from Todd, though his face remained impassive, a vast difference from the gears turning in his mind with ferocity.

"It's blood."

"Well, it's certainly not wine."

_It's not gray._ "It's beautiful."

Mrs. Lovett was uncharacteristically taken aback. "Excuse me, Mr. Todd?"

It took little effort to pull her into his arms, his personality shifting enthusiastically as he spun her into a fast waltz, "It's beautiful, you're beautiful, just as I thought you would be." His words were tinged with the gruff melodic voice he donned when carrying a tune, more appealing to Mrs. Lovett than money or clothing or life itself.

Her feet shifting instinctively with his about the room as she happily played along. Anything to feel something remotely close to affection from Mr. Todd. "Of course, Mr. Todd. Though you're far more beautiful than I, Mr. Todd."

He stopped and gripped her shoulders, his smile dark yet inviting, "I want to see more! Let me see your beauty within, taste it, touch it…" They were impossibly close. The crackling fireplace cast an intimate shadow over his handsome face. It made her knees buckle and her lips part in anticipation.

"…Let's take a gander, shall we, Mrs. Lovett?"

* * *

They fell to her bed with no more than a light bounce, Todd's movements like rolling water when he had purpose. Mrs. Lovett's dark curls fanned across the starch white of her pillow. Todd's eyes were glazed once more, but not in dank emptiness akin to his formal demeanor. They held fire glazed with frosted lust melting and flowing into her core with every breath she took. It was as if this was not the same Sweeney Todd who slaughtered those who, in professional opinion, deserved death or something far worse.

His knees straddled the crinkled folds that blanketed her hips. His back hunched to grant his hot breath access to the shell of her ear, "Show me, Mrs. Lovett. Show me that you're not like all the others." His hands cut to the chase far better than a razor ever could, cupping and kneading her breasts through the thick garment that clothed them.

Mrs. Lovett was lost in a dream world that did not permit her to comprehend any of Todd's words or the meanings behind them. All she felt was the twisting ribbons that thread through her center and tugged insistently in Todd's direction, guiding her to what seemed right.

Her response was a delicate gasp and Todd readily drank it up, flowing movements displaying sensual desire that Mrs. Lovett was well prepared to fulfill. She would trudge to the ends of the earth for the man who so uncharacteristically trailed his hands to the hem of her dress and slid the layers up the expanse of her calves, knees, and finally her thighs.

She held her breath. At this time of month, it didn't seem like the act they wished to commit would be very _clean_, though she confirmed that the sensuality they radiated overpowered fear of rejection for her stale filth.

Her doubts settled into the back of her mind when Todd's fingers slid her undergarments to her knees and readjusted his position to kneel between them. His eyes swept across the expanse of browning red that licked at Mrs. Lovett's inner thighs. Something so morally disgusting fueled Todd with longing and a strange need for more.

The only complication was the fading color. What he assumed to once be brilliant scarlet lay cracked and faded in tiny smears. He only felt a tinge of disappointment which he demonstrated with a familiar twitch in his lip. Of course, nothing lasts forever. The beauty, like people, had to expire at some point.

He would make it his duty to fully indulge in and savor gift he was being given before it died with everything else he held dear.

Mrs. Lovett gazed up in anticipation, appearing to the walls around them as any wanton woman with her legs askew would. She was only wanton for Mr. Todd. She pushed to ensure that he knew what she was willing to endure for a single smile. Now, she was getting more than she had ever asked for in her dreams.

"Don't just sit there and stare," she motioned huskily to mask her nervousness, dragging his hand to her most private areas, "take what you need."

Todd felt his fingers brush warm, wet skin. He pulled them back to find the tips smeared in red. He stared. It was a drastic change from the dreary gray around them.

His suspicions of Mrs. Lovett were confirmed.

She was beautiful inside and out. She did not need to be sliced open like his customers. The blood coating his hand was proof of her graciousness to the beauty within her… she set it free voluntarily.

His tight-lipped frown curled upward. Todd traced incomprehensible red symbols into Mrs. Lovett's quivering thighs, gradually leaning to skillfully unlatch the hooks that held her dress together.

"You really are beautiful, Mrs. Lovett."

He just once let her smile reach his eyes. "As are you, Mr. Todd."

Blurred flashes passed before him. He drank from her hungrily and she eagerly offered herself to satiate his rabid appetite. He gathered her red beauty into his hands and roughly smeared it along her exposed body, deep moans her compliance to be his canvas. He indulged in her core and fed from it until the writhing mass below him was well prepared to receive his offering of gratitude. The red was a comfort that aided in their ferocious lovemaking.

Todd allowed himself to float in the afterglow. Mrs. Lovett lay panting beside him, eyes closed, arms encircling his naked torso. He was bathed in red from hair to toe. The stale smell never penetrated his nostrils, his senses taken over by a blind need to feel.

Lying in Mrs. Lovett's bed, covered in her menstrual blood, naked body entwined with hers, Sweeney Todd felt as beautiful as Mrs. Lovett was.

* * *

When one dies, their life supposedly flashes before their eyes as the internal clock clicks to a stop. Sweeney Todd sat in mourning of his deceased wife and voluntarily allowed the lips of his razor to caress his neck like the whore he was. She was beautiful. They were both beautiful. He had destroyed their beauty, one burned to death in grudging flame and the other tastelessly sliced open and dropped to rot with those who deserved it far more. He was the gray that balanced them both, the smudge that marred their perfect beauty and ultimately destroyed it in his own selfish insanity. When he thought his wife lost, Mrs. Lovett offered herself to him, let him drink her beauty when she knew he could never be as beautiful as she.

Before Todd died, all he remembered was Mrs. Lovett.

'_And she was beautiful…'_


End file.
